“I didn’t realize until almost two weeks into it I was dead in the water. You know why I was dead in the water? Because the DA had people up there … saying everything that he wanted them to say, and there was nothing to rebut it or dispute it, or put that doubt in people’s minds about what was being said,” Raucci said of District Attorney Robert Carney’s earliest prosecution witnesses.

Raucci, the former facilities director and energy manager of Schenectady schools and one-time CSEA local union president, expressed dismay that several of his former workers, whom he considered friends, took the witness stand and told what he considered half-truths about him.

In a jailhouse interview Thursday at the Schenectady County Jail, five weeks after a jury convicted him of 18 crimes targeting his enemies in the school district and CSEA, Raucci talked bluntly for more than two hours about his belief that he was railroaded by the judicial system and demonized by the media.

“You don’t know what that was like to sit there and watch my character being assassinated, and to know what I’m all about, and I’m all about helping people,” said Raucci. He feels his achievements during his 35-year tenure with the city district were ignored.

Raucci, dressed in orange prison garb and wearing white, rubber-soled shoes with Velcro straps, maintained a personable-but-tough veneer, saying the past 15 months have been demoralizing for him. Despite his mistrust of the media, he said he hoped the Times Union would help set the record straight.

Raucci’s voice cracked with emotion as he discussed the toll the ordeal has had on his wife, Shelley, particularly when he ruminated about how their lives might have been different had he heeded her urging years ago to retire from the his six-figure school district job. He finally did so in March 2009, a month after his arrest on charges that he had vandalized and planted explosive devices on his enemies’ cars and homes since 1993. Police said they seized homemade explosives from his Mont Pleasant Middle School office and $120,000 from his Niskayuna home. On Thursday, he said the amount was actually $125,000 and that authorities returned only $114,000.

Raucci, 61, was found guilty on April 1 of all but four of 22 counts, including arson, conspiracy and weapons offenses. However, he was acquitted of a high-level terrorism charge. He is scheduled to be sentenced June 8 and faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.

Perhaps no prosecution witnesses was more powerful than Keith McKenna, a retired Glenville police officer with a history of substance abuse and disciplinary problems. McKenna wore a wire for State Police three times between December 2008 to February 2009 to secretly record Raucci bragging about some of the attacks.

“I believed you could say anything you wanted to say, and that’s where I made a mistake, but things that were said on that tape were the same way I used to brag and take credit for things,” Raucci said, reinforcing the defense argument posited by his attorney, Ronald DeAngelus.

He said his wife and other relatives hate McKenna, but that he doesn’t.

The convicted felon again became emotional and paused to compose himself as he recounted how some of the same school employees he had considered friends and even socialized with outside work could have turned on him when he needed them most. He specifically mentioned Gregory Zannitto, John LaPointe Jr., David Ralston Sr. and Barbara Tidball.

“I talked to them probably a little harsh at times, but I believed these people because of all things I was doing for them. I believed these people really liked me,” he said. “How a DA got these people to say what they said…I gotta give him credit; maybe it was fear factor.”

He said two people he declined to identify opted not to testify for him out of fear of personal or professional repercussions.

Raucci recounted how he found himself wondering “do they hate me that much?” as he listened to some of the school district employees he formerly supervised “distort the truth” while testifying for the prosecution.

In particular, he singled out Ellen Frederick, his former secretary, and former CSEA members Harold and Deborah Gray. Raucci said there was “not an ounce of truth” in what Frederick said when she testified that Raucci admitted to mistreating a former employee, that he carried out attacks on retired Schenectady Athletic Director Gary DiNola’s property and that he harbored resentment for the Grays.

He said his friendship with the Grays — who earlier talked him into running for local union president — ended because of their hunger for power.

“They are the people that were caught up in the power,” he said. “Power because once they saw I didn’t need them, it seemed to bother them, and I was able to keep peace in the union.” He said they turned against ex-CSEA union leader Joanne DeSarbo when he started to develop “rapport” with her.

Raucci was convicted of vandalizing the Grays’ property several times from May 2005 to February 2009. He had blamed Deborah Gray for writing an anonymous letter in January 2005 to CSEA Regional President Kathy Garrison exhorting her to remove Raucci from his union post because of his abusive behavior.

He surmised that the damaging testimony they and others provided was largely motivated by the possible financial windfalls of pending legal actions against him and the school district, and because they were scared of the district attorney’s office.

“(Carney) put it together the way he needed to get the results he did,” he said. “The district attorney orchestrated this for the last three years; he was preparing this forever.”

Carney argued that Raucci resorted to crime so he could hold onto power.

But Raucci said it was DiNola and the Grays who sought to wrest any power and control he had as facilities director.

He accused DiNola of being “full of himself” and said DiNola “felt he was better than me and other people in the district,” DiNola and Raucci had clashed over access to facilities DiNola wanted for his coaches and athletes.

“These people aren’t the innocent victims, the Debbies and the Hals. They are not the victims, they are the bullies. I was the victim,” he said.

He maintained he was the antithesis of the boss from hell that prosecutors made him out to be. “I would have given anything to work for a boss like me,” he said.

Still, he conceded he could have been a more tactful with his employees, citing a December 2007 speech in which he warned more than 100 school employees about the dire consequences for talking about him if it got back to him.

“With a little fear, you get a certain type of respect,” he said, noting he may have erred in adopting an “angry father approach” with his staff. “I talked tough, but I never hurt anybody. How else was I going to get the respect if I didn’t talk a certain way?”

He acknowledged having handled and, on occasion, even tossed a few M-100s, or quarter-sticks — a type of explosive — from a vehicle, but stressed it was strictly for fun.

“You do it for laughs because you see people startled; it’s not always the right thing and it may be immature? Yes.”

Raucci even theorized that a predominantly black jury from a city environment instead of white suburbanites would have been more understanding of his handling of quarter-sticks.

He also said the so-called “man game” he directed at his male staff was nothing more than “Steve being a prankster.” He is accused of tapping the genitals of male workers, but claims he would only feign hitting them in the crotch and that there was never any physical contact.

“I was always doing things for jokes,” he said, adding he sometimes did “outlandish things.”

While he said the news media focused on the photograph of Marlon Brando as the Godfather that hung behind the door of his office, he revealed on Thursday he had a more visible picture in his office of his boyhood hero, the Lone Ranger.

But he acknowledged he did buy into the Godfather aura.

“I was kind of living up to the role or the image people gave you,” he added. “It gave me a certain clout with the district and certain image and type of respect from the men I worked with. Sometimes with a little fear, you get a certain type of respect.”

He defended his boss, Michael San Angelo, and other district officials, including Michael Stricos and Superintendent Eric Ely, saying the three unfairly ended up in the cross hairs of the news media.

“They (news media) made me out to be the worst person that this county has ever seen, and in the process they’ve hurt a lot of other people. They did their jobs, they’re good people, it’s just the way they took things out of context,’ he said. “They’ve made it more personal more than anything else, because they never really wanted to hear the good.”

He described Ely, San Angelo and Stricos as “three dedicated, honest individuals, and I blame the press for making them look like they did something wrong.” He said “both Mikes helped keep a guy like me in line” and that “those guys were by the book.”

He also disputed Carney’s assertion that he had regular breakfast meetings with former school board President Jeff Janiszewski.

“We didn’t even meet once a month, and anyway that’s what you do as union president,” he added. “There’s people out there, especially in the school district, who know the truth, and the irony is that they are not afraid of me, they’re afraid of the judicial system.”

Several times, he said his big heart and his mouth, as well as his penchant for trusting people, have gotten him into trouble.

“That’s my Achilles heel…I trust people to quick, like I’m doing with you now,” he said.

Asked about what he thought might be an appropriate sentence, Raucci would only say that he feels like his life has already been taken from him. “What’s worse than that?” he asked. Still, he is hopeful the appeal will get him back home to his wife and his daughter, who is expecting his first grandchild in September.

43 Responses

Well, it has been a while – but I’m back. Are we serious here? This man was a janitor, a facilities manager and we are having discussions about “power”. Does anyone read this and think that this is a position where someone of his stature needs to instill fear in the employees below him? And then he suggests that HE’S this victim. How sad that we ruined his fun, how could we think that even pretending to grab the genitals of your employees is abusive. Throwing explosives from your vehicles to “startle” people… Making threats should anyone complain about his behavior – this is right out of the Wharton School of Management. Maybe that’s why he compared himself to Donald Trump in the print version of this article. This guy is clearly delusional – a janitor who thought he was more. I suggest that everyone take a look at the charges he was found guilty of and then re-read this interview. This guy needs to go away for a very long time.

I do make this suggestion Mr. Raucci. If you’re really the fun-loving straight shooter that you claim to be why don’t you call this paper back and let them know what you know about the Union officials and School District management who have left you in jail while they walk free. Your friends have abandoned you.

Ok, I’ve remained quiet during this entire ordeal, but the buck stops here. This man is totally disturbed, for him to even suggest that these victims were really his friends and that the District Attorney forced them to testify against him. Does he think that people are really this stupid or is it merely a defense tactic to attempt to strategize his appeal. He says the victims wanted power, so what did they do to him that would warrant the destruction that he caused? Does he expect anyone to believe that they vandalized their own homes and planted his DNA. He went above and beyond because of the jealousy that he had towards his victims, mostly, DiNola and Gray, he spoke of them almost everyday. He says he was a prankster, well that’s what he called it, I call it torment, he would set the newspaper on fire and then throw it under the stall when one of us were on the toliet or he would take digital photos under the stall to try to humiliate us. This was what he calls a prankster, the joke was always on him, we hated him. We despised him, we tolerated and pretended every day of our lives with him in order to survive. The day of his arrest we were elated but he was still barking orders, directing us to go and fix the door at his house, claiming that the police had kicked it in. He’s a true bully and power was the only thing he cared about. Any normal human being who was making $140,000. a year and wasn’t worth $30,000. would have just sat back and kept quiet to not draw attention to themselves, but he didn’t care about the money. His wife was the driver for the money, she forced him to keep asking for more. He claims to have done so much for the school district, the fact is that he did NOTHING, we did the work and he took the credit and the money. I’m glad he named his fan club in his article, because we all know that they did nothing to keep him in line and that was evident in the emails that he sent to the them, he told them what to do and they all went along with it. His stepdaughter will be fine since she has her own father and family and his wife is laughing all the way to the bank, so the real joke is on him. He once said “I don’t have a Steve”, I sincerely hope that he finds himself that “Steve” that he so craves.

Is he kidding? What’s next a movie? Looser, looser, looser. All the thieves and liars in this whole case can plead all they want and try to blame others but the bottom line is, he got caught, he got convicted and he’s going to jail for a lifetime. I’m only sorry that they’re not all going with him, at least not right yet anyway. He’s “all about helping people”, do what? destroy people’s lives? Steve, if you have access to these blogs, know this – we hate you for what you put us all through, we hate what you did to our lives and our families, we’re ashamed at all of the pain and suffering you caused so many innocent people, you need to be in a maximum security prison for the rest of your life.

I feel so bad for Stevie….NOT!!! If he felt the way he spoke in the interview, why didn’t he tell his lawyer he wanted to take the stand in defense of himself? It is because he is so full of…let’s just say himself. He would rather be feared than respected and ruled by fear. June 8th can’t come quick enough. Then he will taste the fear he dished out each and everyday he spends behind bars for a long, long time.

blah! blah! blah! It’s over idiot, no-one believes a word that comes out of your mouth, don’t you get it? Haven’t met one person who actually who had anything good to say about you or liked you. I knew your 1st ex-wife and she thought you were a nut case and that’s why she dumped ya. My sister worked with your 2nd ex-wife and she dumped you as well, after only a few short months of marriage. “T-Bone” is right, you will finally have a taste of the fear and intimidation that you dished out to each and every one of your many victims.

I can’t believe that it took him half into the trial to figure that he was “dead in the water”. When they cuffed him at the district on February 20, 2009 and kept re-arresting him at each police department and he didn’t make bail, that wasn’t a dead give away?

Wow, I’m reading this stuff and then turn on the news and see CSEA at the capitol fighting against furloughs. Then Danny Donohue comes on and tells us how Gov. Patterson must negotiate and “He Can’t tell us what to do”. This ladies and gentleman is the problem at this point with the unions. A complete inability to grasp reality. So, here’s how it is:

Mr. Raucci, you are a convicted felon and former janitor – that’s it, no power struggle, no conspiracy to rid us of you – get a grip, you turned off lights for a living – we were OK before you and we will apparently be even better without you. The state is in serious financial trouble so, please turn off the lights at the prison when you can.

Mr. Donohue, your negotiated contracts have resulted in salaries and benefits that the taxpayers can NOT afford – this is as much a problem caused by the unions as it is by our elected officials. The money is gone – it’s time to tighten the belts. How dare you suggest that your Union will not move while we know that the State could possibly be bankrupt before years end. Why don’t you (and your other elected cronies) opt to not collect the salaries from the State jobs you don’t do while you are “in office”. Why don’t you clean up your house first (get rid of some Raucci associates like Garrison, Sullivan, DeSarbo, Campon, etc.) then, perhaps we will take you seriously. You want to protect your members? Figure out a way that they can have jobs in another year because, the fact is, many of them will not if you continue along this path. Oh, I forgot, you’re looking to bail and go to AFCSME – maybe you’ll be able to cost members their futures nationally instead of just State-wide.

To Wow-you hit the nail on the head. It is a complete shame and a scam that these CSEA state officers collect these enormous salaries, while the state continues to pay their salaries and pay into their retirement. This actually means that they will collect their state retirement and a csea retirement as well. I understand that they also have expense accounts that equal their salaries and their car’s are paid for and they also have annuities I read in one of these blogs that CSEA does not have checks and balances, that its their own appointees who review the protocol, that’s a crime! I have watched day after day as Raucci sent school district employees to pick up his wife at work and they ran her errands on district time with district vehicles. Raucci also collected an enormous salary, that we as tax payers have had to bear. So the unions are at the root of this entire corrupt situation.

“but I believed these people because of all things I was doing for them. I believed these people really liked me,” he said. “How a DA got these people to say what they said…I gotta give him credit; maybe it was fear factor.”

Is this man playing with a full deck? What was he doing for them? Using scare tatics, intimidating them? He’s a nut case if there ever was one!
It just goes to show you, kiss the bosses butt, and see where it will get you! No where!

Everyday we were subjected to his bullying. He forced us to listen to his ranting and raving about how wonderful he was and how lucky we all were to have him. He answered to no-one, he ran the show with Ely, Strickos, Janisewski and San Angelo’s blessing. He forced Ellen out of her job and moved her to another school, all because she told him what she really thought of him and he was appalled. Every person who ever got in his face or just flat out told him like it was, was either fired or vandalized. The Gray’s bore the brunt because they tried numerous times to address what he was doing to all of us and Ron Kriss was attacked because he drew attention with his workers compensation claim. DiNola stood up to him and even tried to get Ely to take control of him but it didn’t work because he was protected all the way around. He had the district and CSEA covering for him. Each day when I got to work I wondered who would be his victim today, who would he humiliate today. He needs to stay in prison for the rest of his life or the victims will be in danger. We’ve all been to hell and back, its his turn, but lets keep him there.

I really have to ask, is the reason for this article/interview because it really JUST occurred to Mr. Raucci that he’s in some sort of trouble? And to the Times Union, you really didn’t print this because you believe there’s some bit of truth behind what Mr. Raucci had to say to, let’s be real one more time tonight.

Mr. Raucci, I would guess that since your sentencing is coming up that your attorney, Mr. DeAngelus HAD you give this interview. My guess is that he was hoping you could muster up some sympathy to lessen your jail term. I’m fairly sure that after reading the article and then the blog entries that followed, you were not successful.

Times Union, I get it… You are a business and you need to sell papers but really, this guy is a nut and you printed his ravings as if it were news… Do us a favor, keep digging into the behavior of Mr. Raucci’s co-conspirators instead. There’s more guilty folks out there, you really can’t make this stuff up and, we’ll buy the papers for that – it makes great reading. There’s DeSarbo, she’s got burglary charges against her in Rensselaer but nothing seems to be happening – how can this be – she was a named co-conspirator during Raucci’s trial and nothing is happening – take a look – see what’s doing there. There’s Garrison – she claims to know nothing was going on – interesting, every member in a local/region she was responsible for knew, and yet she didn’t – at the very least we can determine she is incompetent at most we can say she’s lying. There’s Campon, his wife works for the same corrupt individuals named all over this case, no civil service tests, nothing. His involvement with all of these folks and then his taking over as part of the cover-up administratorship is the stuff that movies are made of… There’s Donohue and CSEA management who was made aware of this behavior on several occasions and decided to remove folks from office, ignore, demote and fire the “whistle blowers” rather than deal with the problems. Dig away Times Union – papers will be flying off the shelves.

As I’ve said many times CSEA has a history of behavior here. I experienced it first hand along with the many others. In the early 90’s our group tried to expose the union and the corruption. We had them in and out of court and we faced many obstacles, we eventually ran out of money fighting the union. Over the years the power has intensified and the corruption has gotten much worse. They incorporated private sector employees in the union which brought in lots more dues money. As we are all painfully aware, more money is more power, especially in unions. They don’t care about the members, they only care about the dues structure and maintaining the status quo. Look at this furlough, CSEA will still get their dues money even though the workers have lost a substantial weekly wage. If CSEA really cared about its members it would waive dues during the furloughs but you’ll never see that happen because they Mr. Donohue would be able to take off to Ireland and go golfing for a week. Why I for one, am not particularly fond of our Governor, but what the heck is he suppose to do? He took over a financial nightmare and as was stated by one of the bloggers, its absolutely disgusting that these CSEA statewide & region officers still receive their state salaries while they are collecting these huge salaries from CSEA. They are greedy people who use members to benefit their lifestyles. They reward those who help them by putting them on committees and then they own them. There is no democracy, its all a scam. Their tenacles are everywhere and there is no stopping them unless there are changes made to laws controlling organized labor. So this Raucci saga does not surprise me in the least, he’s just one of the bullies that finally got caught.

To set the record straight-
Steve Raucci was the joke of the School District. We never liked him and we were forced to socialize with him and his wife or face his wrath. We did not respect him in the least and we often wondered why the district would put someone in charge who had no skills.
He does not have a heart and he loves to hear himself talk and that would explain the 2+ hours with the Times Union.
It’s to bad that he didn’t speak any truth, it would have great to get a confession. Hi yo silver!!!!

Are we to believe that the Schenectady DA, the media, the employees of the school district and a few complete strangers who had property vandalized all conspired against a school facilities manager? What could possibly be the reason for this Mr. Raucci? We’re you getting too powerful in your janitorial duties that you posed some sort of a threat to the community? All about helping people, how so? Your attorney couldn’t/didn’t put anyone on the stand who even mentioned any of your helpful moments? Perhaps he didn’t realize that you were in any sort of trouble either.

My suggestion to you is that if you really want to be viewed as something other than a misguided criminal you start to consider talking… Something more than the baloney you’ve put in this interview, something concrete that confirms what we all already know. That you did not act alone, that you had the support of superiors and union officials and that finally, you want to do the right thing and put this matter to bed. Otherwise, things like appeals, etc. will continue to victimize the people of this town as we are paying the bills for all of this frivolous litigation. Be a man Steve, acknowledge your mistakes and, please stop insulting our intelligence by pretending to be misunderstood.

We’re all tired of hearing about this overpaid janitor. Give it a rest, he did the crime, now he can do the time and he needs to shut up already, we don’t care what he thinks. A real exclusive would have been him admitting his guilt and telling us taxpayers that he’s now going to pay back the money that he took when he falsified his time records. He feels bad for his wife? She obviously knew what was going on, come one, janitors don’t make $135K a year and he left her with an $80k a year income.
Now lets move on to bigger things, like how CSEA screwed its members with this furlough by refusing every alternative that was presented. I’m sure if you pooled the State Workers, they would have agreed to postpone their 4% raise rather than face the furloughs, but that can’t happen because CSEA is probably planning another dues increase in the fall. I feel for these people, especially those where both spouses work for the State, what a shame and just think, you’ll pay dues even though your check is shorted by hundreds of dollars. As Danny Donohue always says, “we do it right”.

Reply to #15 comment by wow: How interesting that you did not include the Grays as those who warrant further investigation. The fact that a convicted criminal like Mr. Raucci says they are no good should be reason enough.
Perhaps, as I strongly suspect, you are one of them and are once again trying to strengthen your bogus lawsuit.

The Grays, along with a few others should be right in the next jail cell next to Raucci. They all set the foundation of everything that took place over the years. The Grays use to be part of the “behind -closed-doors” meetings, because they want just as much control that Raucci just took.

Over the years I had a lot of dealings with the Local and with Campon. A lot of run around and hogwash. They all protect each other and don’t care about the members. The only help I ever got was from Michelle Tebano and the Gray’s, DeSarbo was never around and never returned phone calls and the few times she did, my supervisor would end up finding out that I was complaining about him and I’d have hell to pay. Didn’t take me long to figure out that she was behind it. The few times that I caught DeSarbo actually in her office, she would make excuses why she didn’t return my calls and blame Tebano and the Grays for making a mess of things at social services and that she had to clean things up. I was on to her and I stopped dealing with her all together. I am grateful to Tebano and the Grays for all their help but nothing ever got resolved because I was railroaded and I now know that DeSarbo was behind it. DeSarbo destroyed our union and now we have no one to turn to. Raucci and DeSarbo were friends, that’s enough for me.

Jim K – In response to your last statement, “Raucci and DeSarbo were friends, that’s enough for me”, are you kidding? Debbie Gray and JoAnn DeSarbo were joined at the hip for many, many years. Also, the Grays were very cozy with Steve Rauci until he had more power than them. So if Rauci and DeSarbo are dirty, the Gray’s longtime friendship with both only demonstrates that water does indeed seek it’s own level.

“Interested follower”- Obviously you didn’t follow the trial or the facts. DeSarbo betrayed everyone. No one was ever “cozy” with Raucci, except for DeSarbo. People did what they had to, its called survival, just like we did everyday at the school district. Do you even know what DeSarbo was doing? You make statements that make no sense. DeSarbo would come to Mt. Pleasant and hang out in Raucci’s office, she’d ask to borrow money and then they’d go to lunch, talk about cozy! All the while she was telling everyone, how much she hated Raucci. There was nothing to be jealous of with Raucci, his power never went beyond the school. He would drag us to CSEA Region dinners and the people would ignore him and it would infuriate him. He’d spend the whole night asking us if we thought they were talking about him because people would stare, none of us had the guts to tell him they were staring at his wig!! The guy’s a psychopath. If you’re going to blog, get your facts straight first, no one was jealous of him period….

Here’s a FACT “Susan”: Deborah Gray continues to be absent more than present in her job at SCCC since the start of the trial. The already drained Schenectady County taxpayers might want to find out if she’s collecting full “sick pay” for the time she’s using to file lawsuits.
Anyone employed in the private sector would have been UNemployed months ago.

Well, seems business is booming out here on the blogs. I have to admit, since Deeply Concerned Citizen left after the Raucci verdict, there was a bit of a void but, now, we have Interested Follower – very exciting! You are correct, I did not mention the Grays in my post #15, I didn’t address any of the documented AND PROVEN victims from the crime(s) that Mr. Raucci was found guilty of. If you paid attention to anything during the trial, you would have heard NAMED co-conspirators. Should we forget that for some reason? In any event, I’m not sure what you’re suggesting, investigate anyone who has a lawsuit against individuals and organizations who have committed crimes or acted improperly? The Grays and, frankly everyone who went up on the stand, put themselves out there for complete scrutiny by Mr. Raucci’s defense and, if they’re pursuing lawsuits will continue to put themselves out there. I noticed that many of Mr. Raucci’s “friends” were absent as witnesses – in fact many of them didn’t even show up at the trial. Be interested, be truthful and continue to ask folks to investigate, my guess is, YOU are one of the named co-conspirators so, your continued pursuit of having folks discredited will come back to bite you. Have a nice day.

(interested follower) Why are you attacking people who tried to help us and put themselves on the line? They were there for us, leave them alone. You obviously didn’t follow the trial or the facts. I agree with #28, this smells of jealousy to me.

Some of these blogs are ridiculous! There was definitely a conspiracy going on and anyone who has ever been involved with CSEA could attest to that. You should have been around during Region and Statewide elections, if you wanted to see a power struggle. It is all about power, but certainly not on a unit level. Unit officers have no power. Actually only the Local President on up has power within the ranks of CSEA. Whatever power Raucci had accquired, he got from the School District because he had none in the local, at least not during my tenure. My recollection was that he sat quietly during our meetings, would always arrive late, never asked any questions and never participated on any of our committees or social events. He was looked upon by the others as being “different” I’m being kind. I was part of the checks and balances in the Local, questioning DeSarbo’s actions and expenses and she certainly didn’t like it. I could see then that a relationship was brewing between Raucci and her. I certainly do not recall anyone ever being jealous of him, but I do remember from years past that he always had a jealousy towards Hal Gray. This jealousy expanded towards his wife, Debby. I was a very active member of the Local for many years and spent a great deal of my time with these people and I have always had a tremendous amount of respect for Hal and he was certainly looked up upon by all of us. The Gray’s could have cared less of Raucci and viewed him as the rest of us did, as a nuisance. So please stop this “starved for power/jealousy” thing because it’s a flat out lie.